Messer Antonio Giordani da Venafro (1459-1530), juriste et secrétaire à la cour de Pandolfo Petrucci, seigneur de Sienne

Abstract

Judge, professor of civil law at the Studio of Siena, then of Naples, and special advisor to Pandolfo Petrucci, Antonio Giordani da Venafro is perhaps one of the most emblematic case studies to draw the first definition of the essential traits of the secretary at the very moment of the historical affirmation of this institutional figure. This paper aims at painting a faithful and dynamic portrait of Venafro, that stands at the crossroads between the biographical notes narrated in the chronicles, the memories of the contemporaries who knew him and the making of the legend that follows the end of his political career. This article therefore aims at briefly tackling the three stages that make up the entire “Venafro’s trajectory”: from life to memory; from memory to myth. The narrative proposed to the reader then dwells on concrete events that punctuated the material life led by Pandolfo Petrucci’s secretary, leading up to Venafro’s identification with the ideal type of the cunning and ingenious secretary drawn up in Nicolas Machiavelli’s letters or in Francesco Vettori’s Journey in Germany. Eventually this character becomes the ultimate secretary described in Machiavelli’s sketches in the Prince’s twenty-second chapter with the mythical allure of the outstanding and unscrupulous advisor that Lodovico Domenichi depicts in the Detti, et fatti di diversi Signori et persone private in 1562.

Keywords

• Italian Renaissance
• Italian Wars
• Republic of Siena
• Pandolfo Petrucci
• Machiavelli
• secretary